The program, killed by former Gov. George Deukmejian in a
budget-cutting move last year, has received national acclaim for its
pioneering experiments with performance assessments.

The negotiations last week resolved differences between lawmakers,
led by the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Senator Gary K.
Hart, who urged that the revamped program include a greater reliance on
performance assessments. Such measures require students to construct
answers, rather than fill in blanks on an answer sheet.

Governor Wilson, on the other hand, insisted that the assessment
program test every student at every grade level. But some legislators
argued that condition would make use of the more costly alternative
assessments unlikely. The budget for the next fiscal year includes $10
million for the assessment program.

"It's burdensome on pupils to test every year, and it's expensive,"
said Susan Burr, a consultant to the Senate education panel.

The compromise reached last week calls for the program to make
substantial use of performance assessments, while also providing scores
for every student. But rather than create an annual state test,
officials would devise a way to compare scores on district-level tests
in the years state tests are not administered.

Under such a system, "a student's score in Stockton and a student's
score in Bakersfield are going to mean the same thing," said Amy
Albright, a spokesman for Governor Wilson's department of child
development and education.

The legislation, which has passed the Senate in a somewhat different
form and was scheduled for floor action in the Assembly late last week,
was modeled after recommendations of a panel named by Superintendent of
Public Instruction Bill Honig to recommend ways to design a revived
assessment program.

That panel, chaired by Thomas W. Payzant, superintendent of the San
Diego Unified School District, called for increasing the use of
alternative measures of student performance, adding additional subjects
to the state tests, and changing the grades in which students are
tested.

'Profound Need'

The bill as worked out last week would phase in the use of
alternative assessments over five years. Although first-year funding
for the program would be about $10 million, funding would rise to $35
million at the end of five years, according to Ms. Burr.

The bill also calls for statewide tests in half the subjects in
grade 4 and the other half in grade 5, and in all subjects in grades 8
and 10, rather than testing students in grades 3, 6, 8, and 12, as in
the previous program.

Ms. Burr explained that the new schedule would allow only one
testing period in elementary, middle, and high school.

"We wanted to reduce the number of times kids are tested," she
said.

At Mr. Wilson's urging, the bill also would provide scores for
individual students.

"Our concern," said Ms. Albright, "is that the assessment program
provide parents information about their child, rather than a general
picture of how their class is doing."

The legislation also provides that the assessments be based on the
state's curricular frameworks. Dale Carlson, director of the program,
said state officials would work with test publishers to ensure that the
tests administered in the intervening grades also focus on the
frameworks.

Mr. Carlson noted that the state in June awarded $965,000 to two
consortia of districts to develop performance-based assessments. The
consortium based in San Diego and the other based in northern
California-will develop, field test, and disseminate to other districts
new assessments to replace traditional multiple-choice tests.

"The California Assessment Program will never, obviously, meet all
the needs of teachers day-to-day," said Mr. Carlson. "This is making a
small dent in their profound need. We'll be working with them as we
revamp and redevelop cap."

Vol. 11, Issue 02, Page 15

Published in Print: September 11, 1991, as Calif. Lawmakers, Governor Agree on Test Program

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